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[8] death, with occasional visits to his friends in New York and Boston, and his relatives in Milton. When in Massachusetts, he was usually the guest of Daniel Vose, at whose house in Milton he had lived before he entered college.

In 1787, Governor John Hancock appointed him a justice of the peace,—a distinction then less common than now.

Before Major Sumner entered upon his duties as commissioner, he was publicly presented by the Governor of Georgia to the General Assembly. Shortly before his death, he is said to have been voted for as Governor of that State in the General Assembly, and to have failed of success by only a few votes. He maintained there an expensive style of living, keeping his horse and servant, and enjoying the best and most fashionable company. He became embarrassed by improvident loans to his friends at home and in the South. From 1784 to 1789, poverty and debt prevailed. In a letter from Savannah, of July 16, 1788, he says: ‘There never was a man, under such fair prospects as I had three years ago, so dreadfully cut up. I have been robbed by almost every man I have put any confidence in. They have taken all.’ His last visit to Boston was in the summer of 1788. It was then observed that his health had been impaired by his southern residence. Early in September, 1789, having lately experienced a severe attack of a fever, from the effects of which he had but imperfectly recovered, he embarked on board a vessel bound from Savannah to New York. While at sea, he was poisoned, we are told, by eating of a dolphin, caught off the copper banks of Cape Hatteras. The vessel made a rapid passage to New York, reaching there on the 14th, and he was taken on shore without delay. He was already in the height of a fever, and bereft of reason; and he died on the morning of Wednesday, Sept. 16, at the age of thirty-five. He was buried the next day with the respect due to his memory. His funeral was attended by the Vice-President (John Adams), the Secretary of War (Henry Knox), and the Senators and Representatives in Congress from Massachusetts.1 His pall was upheld by eight officers of the late army: General Webb, and Colonels Bauman, Walker, Hamilton, Willet, Platt, Smith, and White. The hearse was preceded by a regiment of artillery and the Society of the Cincinnati.2

1 The first Congress under the Constitution was then in session in New York.

2 New York Journal and Weekly Register, Sept. 16, 1789: Gazette of the United States, Sept. 19, 1789; Massachusetts Centinel, Sept. 26, 1789

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